You see the moon on a daily basis, but how knowledgeable are you about Earth's only natural satellite? NASA's Common Moon Misconceptions page is setting the record straight about the moon. Here are a few common moon misconceptions:

False: The moon makes its own light.
True: The moon simply reflects light from the sun.

False: The moon travels around Earth every 24 hours.
True: It takes the moon 27.3 days to complete a revolution around our planet. It completes a full rotation on its axis in the same amount of time.

False: One side of the moon never sees light.
True: Because the moon constantly rotates, there is no "dark side" of the moon; there is simply a side we cannot see. It's more accurately referred to as the moon's "far side."

False: There's no gravity on the moon.
True: The moon does have gravity, but it's less than we're used to on Earth: about 1/6 of Earth's gravity!

Learn more about the moon on NASA's website.

CC-BY-SA-2.0/Flickr/jabberwock

When you have a large group of people over for dinner, serving food buffet-style ensures that everyone gets exactly what they want. But how can you be sure that everything stays fresh, from appetizers to dessert? Here are a few tips for serving a safe food buffet.

1. Buy foods at the proper temperature. Things like fried chicken, casseroles, and ice cream should be kept at the same temperature from the store to the buffet table, as changing their temperatures too much can cause food to spoil.
2. Know the proper temperatures. Hot food should be kept between 140° and 165° Fahrenheit, while cold food should be kept at 40° Fahrenheit and lower.
3. Don’t leave food out for longer than two hours. Be sure to include preparation and serving in your count.
4. Use the proper tools. To ensure that food is kept at the proper temperature, use things like slow cookers, warming trays, and nesting dishes in bowls of ice. To prevent guests from mixing foods, make sure that you provide a separate spoon, spatula, or tongs in each dish. Also provide individual bowls for dips to discourage guests from double-dipping.

Serving Up Safe Buffets [FDA]
Serving Prepared Foods Safely [Whole Foods]
Holiday or Party Buffets [USDA]

CC-BY-2.0/Flickr Nanagyei

The stunning paintings of young dancers and women by Edgar Degas are well loved by many arts patrons. Degas used his classical techniques and merged it with his avant-garde, impressionistic tendencies to create singular portraits of modern life in Paris during the late 1800s. There are a few things you might not know about this important artist, like these five facts:

Degas initially studied law.
At the request of his father, Degas enrolled into the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris. It didn’t suit him well, and Degas left the school two years later to study his true passion—art—at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

Degas never married.
For all of the time he spent with women, drawing, painting, and obsessing over them, Degas never took a wife. He had intimate relationships throughout his life, occasionally with famous artistic women like Mary Cassatt, but the painter remained a bachelor until his death.

New Orleans was his second home.
Degas was born in Paris to a French father and American mother, who was from New Orleans, Louisiana. As an adult, Degas spent much of his time between the two cities, often staying for long periods in New Orleans during the French-Prussia War. His painting "The Cotton Exchange at New Orleans" was inspired by the city and was the only work purchased by a museum during his lifetime.

He collected art.
Degas was a rare type of artist who enjoyed financial success, unlike many of his contemporaries. This allowed him the ability to purchase artwork to create a collection that included work from Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

He stopped painting.
Toward the end of his life, Degas suffered from terrible sight problems. Embittered by this problem, Degas stopped painting altogether. He focused on sculpture, experimented with photography, and promoted his own work. By the time he died in 1917, he had stopped his artistic endeavors altogether.

Edgar Degas [Biography]
Edgar Degas Biography [Edgar Degas]
Edgar Degas Biography [Modern Art Muse]

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